Born Again
by Back2backAgain
Summary: Sal Bertolinni was changed in a single night. The rest of his life was shaped around that single moment. His destiny. From death came the life of Colonel Stars and Stripes, and his struggle for redemption and his faith. Rating may go up.


**(Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Kick-Ass series or any of its characters.)**

**1**

The air is thick with the smell of blood. That is the man's first thought as he awakes from his position where he sags against the wall on the floor. He's seen blood before, drawn it before. He's had to, in his line of work. But never this much. Never to the point where it reeks like this. He wishes he could open his eyes to see what happened. Probably some fight with Tony over the beer again. He'll just lie here, and open his eyes in a minute. Just a minute. His second thought is that he's cold. _So cold. And oh so very tired. …so tired_. His arms feel like lead as he struggles to sit up against the wall. He puts a hand down for leverage and a dim flicker of alarm passes through his mind before it's suppressed. His hand is now sticky, slippery with something. _Probably water._ Joe always forgets to turn that damn leaky sink all the way off. He finally succeeds in sitting up all the way and leans his head back against the wall to rest. His hair sticks to something, and he feels water dribbling down his head. He's puzzled, the water from the sink couldn't have gotten all the way up on the wall.

Strangely and suddenly nervous, he struggles to open his eyes. They keep drooping back down, and it's so hard to not just sit and take a quick nap. But he finally gets them open, and the first thing he sees are his sticky hands covered in a brilliant shade of red. Relieved, he sighs and sags back against the wall, closing his eyes again. _Paint._ That's what it was. Red paint. They were painting the room. Joe, the big klutz he was, spilled paint all over him while he took his nap. He was going to make sure he cleaned it up when he woke. But first he would finish his little nap. It kept buzzing at him though. _Strange._ Why would anyone give a damn about what color a mob's crack-dealing safe house was? _Ryan would._ He was always weird like that. But the thought kept nagging at him. It didn't make sense. He thought it could wait until after his little quick nap, but it kept coming buzzing back. So he finally opened his eyes again.

This time he didn't see his hands covered with paint. This time he saw Tony lifelessly sprawled across the kitchen table with a bullet hole between his eyes. He just stared, not understanding. Why would Tony sleep _on_ the table? It made no sense. Why was he red? And why wasn't he snoring? Tony always snored. Puzzled, he looked down at his hands again. And then it all clicked. Horrified, he let out a strangled gasp as he recognized the oozing blood that seeped out of his abdomen. Some of it was brown, already crusting over. One of his hands lay across the wound, slowing its pulse of blood. And the pain…dear God, the pain. It comes at him all at once, roaring in a tremendous rush. He sits still for a full minute, groaning and fighting the waves of torturing fire that ravage his body. But then he opens his eyes again, and his hand moves, searching for something. It's hard to think through the pain, but it eventually comes to him. _The phone_. His phone. If he can find it, he can call Mr. D'Amico, get help. He can live. But he can't find it. It's gone. Groaning, he slowly slides to the floor, landing on his side. His clothes grow damp as they meet the slick blood, and they help him slide himself forward as he looks for the phone. It's excruciating, but he has to find it. He has to. He thinks back, to the last time he had his phone. It's nearly impossible, lying on the tile slick with blood and the bullet in his side. But he thinks back. And remembers.

_He's sitting at the apartment's kitchen table with Tony and two other guys, having a beer. He doesn't know the other two that well; they're part of the four that came to make the delivery. Usually it was just him, Tony, Ryan, and Joe. But tonight there were eight of them cramped into the little apartment. He took a deep swig from his can and raised his eyebrows as the doorbell rang. Everyone else looked puzzled too; they weren't supposed to have company tonight. One of the men he didn't know very well motioned to Tony, but he shook his head._

_ Tony pounds against the thin wall separating them, "Joe, you big fat lug! Get the damn door! I swear, if it's that cable guy again I want you to rip his balls out through his ass! You hear me?"_

_ He hears the couch creak as the massive six-foot-seven man lifts himself up and moves toward the door. He takes another swig and then gives a satisfied sigh as he leans back before he hears Joe give a startled grunt._

_ "What the fu-"_

_ A new voice cuts in, with a funny way of speaking. Slow, but menacing, "I thought I'd knock this time around. It's more polite."_

_ Then he hears a thick crunch followed by Joe wheezing, and then a weird sort of slicing sound. Kind of like the one Mom made that one time when they could actually afford to buy a turkey for Christmas. Six months' worth of savings. And when she had cut it, it made a sound just like that. Everyone paused, startled. And then came the unmistakable thump of a body hitting the floor._

_ Tony leapt up from the table and pointed to a cabinet above his head, "Sal, get the guns!"_

_ He jumped from the table and rushed over, but turned back to Tony when he heard the two muffled cracks of a pistol being fired. One of the other two men froze, while the other raced to the cabinet and got out the bin of guns as another shot was swiftly fired._

_ "Hurry!" Tony called in a frenzied state as the man passed guns to both of them. Sal grabbed one of his own and tossed another to the last man. He caught it in mid-air and turned towards the hallway and then stumbled back when a red burst of blood erupted from his throat, accompanied by another muffled crack from outside the hallway._

_ Sal stood terrified and trembling with his gun in hand alongside Tony and the other grunt as some freak of a man strode into the room. He was clad in some kind of black plated body armor. A yellow utility belt with the letters "BD" emblazoned on the buckle snuck around his waist, and he held a silenced pistol and ridged knife in both hands. But what captivated Sal were the man's eyes. Hidden behind some sort of angled deathly black mask, and rimmed by shadows, they emptied him of everything except his fear. The eyes of a man who had lost everything, and would never stop looking for it, even after it was gone. Eyes of a killer. Of vengeance and deathly justice. Eyes of the devil. The man was like a freakish Batman gone wrong. Those eyes held Sal as the man jumped forward from the hallway, dodging a bullet fired from the grunt's gun and launching himself at him. He used the hand with the knife to knock the outstretched gun away, and then in the same motion he plunged the knife into the other man's neck. It stuck out from his throat and into the wall, quivering there, while it held the dead bleeding man upright like some sort of grotesque Christmas ornament. Sal crouched behind the counter, terrified as he struggled to get his phone open to call for help. But the damn thing wouldn't work, and in his haste he kept opening to the camera. The man turned Tony's arm to the side so that the shot would go wild as he moved forward again, and quickly emptied three shots into Tony's torso, from his waist to his throat. He shoved Tony back, and the gurgling man landed sprawled against the kitchen table._

_ Sal gave up trying to call Mr. D'Amico and launched himself into the open with a furious yell, emptying his entire clip towards the freak furiously. But he could never quite tell if he even hit him, because within an instant he was flung back against the wall with a strangely burning yet freezing pain in his stomach. He gasped as everything turned hazy, and he could barely make out the bathroom door opening behind the freak as the last mobster attempted to nail the intruder from behind. The man turned and pistol-whipped the last remaining grunt coming up behind him. Struggling, Sal, accidentally took a photo from his phone as he tried to prop himself back up, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move enough to get up. He watched through half-closed eyes as the freak kicked the grunt's legs out from underneath him, sending him plummeting to the floor, and threw the now empty pistol to the side. But the man caught the grunt by the neck before he hit the floor, and with a savage twisting motion as he spun to the side, he snapped it in a single gruesome blow._

_ Sal gave into sleep then, as the man turned to survey his work. His eyes closed, and he began to drift away from the death, nightmares of a black demon, and the blood. And it was so easy to let go. His last conscious thought was that he was glad to see Alex again._

Sal groaned as he lay on the floor. The pain of remembering, coupled with the fire in his side, is too overwhelming to bear. Tears of pain and fear leak out from his eyes. He doesn't want to die. _Not yet. Please, dear God, not yet. I'm not ready_. From his vantage point on the floor he can see that the cabinet below the sink where they kept the cash and crack is empty. All gone. Everything. He can't find his phone here. It's gone. There was nothing left to stay for. Only death waited for him here.

So, with tears mixed with blood running down his face, he slid himself painfully across the thick blood to the door. He kept his eyes down, not wanting to see Tony staring sightlessly up at the spinning fan above him, or the drooping head of the graying corpse once held to the wall by an enormous knife, now bundled against the floor like a sack of dead meat. Finally, he reached the hallway, and from there it grew harder. There was no blood or water for him to slide on here. Here he had to struggle to stagger to his feet. It was excruciating, even trying to sit back up against the wall. But he did it, cursing and crying. From there he nearly passed out hauling himself up the wall to his feet, but he managed. Leaning heavily against the doorframe for support, he inched his way down the hallway to the front room. Here, he stopped, staring at the three bodies decorating the room. Ryan was sprawled over the couch, hanging limply, while another man lay nearby in a puddle of blood leaking from his chest. Joe was sprawled out in front of the door, staring sightlessly up at the dirty ceiling with his slit throat.

Sal swallowed, and looked towards the door. _Only a few feet away._ But he didn't think he could make it on his feet. He tried anyway, only managing a few lurching, stumbling steps before he crashed to the floor. He landed on his side, sending incredible spikes of pain lacing through his wound. Gasping and crying, he stared over at Joe, and at his slit throat, crusted with blood, only a few feet away. He didn't want to die. Not like that. Not like this. Crying out in anguish, he lifted an arm and hauled himself forward a step. And then again. Another scream. Another reach with that trembling arm. So heavy…but another push follows. Another scream…another step. So he makes his way to the door, past Joe's dead body, and past the death that devil left in this place. He leaves a red, smeared trail of blood across the floor, a reminder of how far he's come. He can't give up now. Not after all of this. Sobbing, he reaches up for the handle. It's so far away, but his fingers just graze the bronze metal. So he musters his strength and tries again, and final reaches that blessed place, turns the handle, and spills himself out into the apartment building's hallway. He lies on the carpeted floor and groans as the door bounces off the wall and swings shut again with a click signifying its lock. Gasping, he hauls himself forward two more steps and finally reaches the door across the hallway.

He lifts a shaky hand and knocks, but no help comes. _Not enough_. Gritting his teeth, he lifts his hand and curls his bloody fingers into a fist, and then pounds them against the door. And again. And again, until the door opens revealing a man dressed all in black above him, and deeper inside the room, a young woman cradling a cross in her hands as she stares at him from the bed. They both gasp, and the man crouches down, muttering some sort of prayer as he cradles Sal's head and places a gentle hand on his chest. He hears the woman making a commotion inside the apartment, the dialing of a phone, but all he can do is sob in relief. He made it. _All over now_. Still crying, he finally lets himself be taken over by the sea of sleep, and feels himself sinking beneath its surf as the waves of pain crash over his head.

**UP NEXT:**

**The origin continues!**

**A/N: Well. I saw Kick Ass 2 about a week ago, and I've been bouncing this idea around in my head until now. I loved the first movie, and the second, and I couldn't help but love Jim Carrey's Colonel Stars and Stripes. He's just a good guy trying to make his difference, and his (SPOILER) death really hit an emotional high for me in the movie. (END SPOILER. But seriously, I expect you guys have all seen Kick-Ass 2 by now.) So I decided I'd play around with the character a bit and do an origin story of sorts. It'll be short, about 5-7 chapters. I've only seen the movies, so pretty much everything will be pulled from that, although I have been meaning to sit down and read the comics at some point. So yeah. Not sure how often I'll be updating, but let me know what you think.**


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